# Eugenics and scientific racism The rise and fall of eugenics and racial pseudoscience: from Galton and the racial theorists through sterilization laws and the Nazi programs to the postwar reckoning. *This story part of: Health and medicine* *Population control: policy, coercion, and conspiracy continues this story* *Genetics and colonialism: ancestry, race-making, and the myth of pure tribes part of this story* *Nazi ideology was not unique: race myth, empire, and extermination part of this story* *How the West supported the Nazis: finance, appeasement, and Cold War bargains parallel this story* ## c. 1735 — Linnaeus divides humans into ranked races In Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus sorted humans into four varieties and attached character traits to each, an early step toward ranking races. The scheme gave a veneer of science to European claims of superiority. *Source: Linnaeus and Race* ## 1795 — Blumenbach's racial classification names five "races" Johann Friedrich Blumenbach divided humanity into five races and coined the term "Caucasian" for Europeans, whom he placed at the center. Though he argued for a shared human origin, his skull-based categories were later used to justify racial hierarchy. *Source: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1753-1840)* ## c. 1796 — Phrenology claims to read character from skulls Franz Joseph Gall promoted phrenology, the false claim that skull shape reveals intelligence and character. It was widely used to argue that Africans and other groups were naturally inferior. *Source: Phrenology in Victorian America* ## 1810 to 1815 — Saartjie Baartman exhibited as the "Hottentot Venus" Saartjie Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman, was displayed as a spectacle in Europe and studied as a supposed racial specimen. Her exploitation in life and dissection after death became a symbol of the dehumanizing gaze of scientific racism. *Source: Historical perspectives on race: Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus* ## 1839 — Morton's Crania Americana promotes racist craniometry Samuel Morton measured skulls to claim that whites had larger brains than other races, work later shown to be biased and flawed. His craniometry was used to defend slavery and racial ranking. *Source: The Fault in His Seeds: Lost Notes to the Case of Bias in Samuel George Morton's Cranial Race Science* ## 1851 — Cartwright invents "drapetomania" to justify slavery Physician Samuel Cartwright coined "drapetomania," a fake disease he said made enslaved people flee bondage. It is a stark example of pseudoscience used to defend slavery and deny the humanity of the enslaved. ## 1853 to 1855 — Gobineau publishes his essay on racial inequality Arthur de Gobineau's Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races argued that a supposed Aryan race was superior and that mixing caused decline. His baseless theory later became a pillar of Nazi ideology. *Source: Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines* ## 1854 — Types of Mankind gives slavery a scientific gloss Josiah Nott and George Gliddon argued in Types of Mankind that races were separate species, with whites at the top. The book was influential propaganda for slavery in the American South. ## 1864 — Spencer coins "survival of the fittest" Herbert Spencer applied a distorted reading of evolution to society, coining "survival of the fittest." Social Darwinism was used to justify inequality, empire, and neglect of the poor as natural law. ## 1869 — Galton's Hereditary Genius lays eugenic groundwork Galton argued in Hereditary Genius that intelligence and ability were inherited and concentrated in certain families, an unproven claim that ignored the role of wealth and privilege. It became a foundation for the eugenics movement. ## 1876 — Lombroso claims criminals are born, not made Cesare Lombroso argued that criminals could be identified by physical features and were evolutionary throwbacks. His criminal anthropology fed racist and classist ideas about who was dangerous by nature. > "textbook from 1850 and you’ll see that the texts were pitched then on what would today be considered college level." > — Dumbing Us Down, p. 48-54 ## 1883 — Galton coins the term "eugenics" Francis Galton coined "eugenics" in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty, proposing that human breeding be controlled to favor supposedly superior traits. The idea would later be used to justify forced sterilization and mass murder. *Source: Eugenics* ## 8 September 1906 — Ota Benga displayed in the Bronx Zoo Ota Benga, a Congolese man, was put on display in the monkey house of the Bronx Zoo as a living example of a "lower" race. The exhibit drew protest from Black clergy and stands as a cruel case of scientific racism in practice. *Source: Understanding Our History* ## 9 April 1907 — Indiana passes the world's first sterilization law Indiana enacted the first law allowing the state to forcibly sterilize people it labeled unfit, including prisoners and people with disabilities. It opened the door to tens of thousands of coerced sterilizations across the United States. *Source: 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law* ## c. 1909 to c. 1979 — California leads U.S. in forced sterilizations California sterilized about 20,000 people under eugenic law, more than any other state, targeting immigrants, the poor, and people in institutions. The state later apologized and set up compensation for survivors. *Source: Eugenics* ## 1910 to 1939 — Eugenics Record Office opens at Cold Spring Harbor Charles Davenport founded the Eugenics Record Office to collect family data and promote eugenic policy. Its flawed research was used to support sterilization laws and immigration restrictions that harmed thousands. *Source: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Place of Science in U.S. History* ## 24 July 1912 — First International Eugenics Congress meets in London Scientists and officials from many countries gathered to promote eugenics as a global movement. The congress helped spread policies of sterilization and racial ranking that had no sound scientific basis. ## 1916 — Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race Grant's bestseller warned that the "Nordic race" was being swamped by inferior immigrants and called for eugenic controls. Hitler reportedly called it his "bible," and it shaped U.S. immigration law. *Source: Madison Grant* ## c. 1920 to c. 1929 — "Fitter Families" contests promote eugenics at fairs At state fairs, eugenicists ran "Fitter Families" contests that judged people on health and heredity like prize livestock. The events spread the false idea that human worth could be measured and bred. ## 22 September 1921 — Second International Eugenics Congress in New York Held at the American Museum of Natural History, the congress showcased eugenic exhibits and pushed for immigration limits based on supposed racial fitness. Its ideas fed directly into restrictive U.S. immigration law. ## 26 May 1924 — U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 enshrines eugenic quotas The Johnson-Reed Act set immigration quotas designed to favor northern Europeans, shaped by eugenicists who claimed some nationalities were biologically inferior. The law later trapped refugees, including Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. *Source: Eugenics* *Source: Madison Grant* ## 1926 — American Eugenics Society is founded The society promoted eugenics through public campaigns, including "Fitter Families" contests that ranked people like livestock. Its work lent respectability to sterilization laws and prejudice against immigrants and the poor. ## 1927 — Buck v. Bell upholds forced sterilization Gatto cites the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, which upheld an Indiana-model sterilization law, allowing Carrie Buck to be sterilized against her will. > "the first formal legislation making forced sterilization a legal act on planet Earth was passed, not in Germany or Japan, but in the American state of Indiana, a law which became official in the famous 1927 Supreme Court test case Buck vs. Bell." > — The Underground History of American Education, p. 52-53 ## 2 May 1927 — Buck v. Bell upholds forced sterilization The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that states could forcibly sterilize people deemed unfit, with Justice Holmes writing "three generations of imbeciles are enough." The decision led to tens of thousands of sterilizations and was cited by Nazi defendants at Nuremberg. *Source: War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race* *Source: Buck v. Bell* ## 1932 to 1972 — Tuskegee syphilis study begins on Black men U.S. public health officials studied untreated syphilis in about 600 Black men, lying to them and withholding penicillin even after it became a cure. The 40-year abuse killed many and became a defining example of racist medical exploitation. > "he did find that the studious group showed superiority in the ability to shift their attention from one thing to another." > — Life in Classrooms ## 21 August 1932 — Third International Eugenics Congress in New York The last major international eugenics congress met as the movement peaked in influence. Within a year, Nazi Germany would turn these ideas into state law. ## 1933 to 1945 — Nazi racial hygiene shapes state policy The Nazi regime built its rule around "racial hygiene," claiming a superior Aryan race and marking Jews, Roma, disabled people, and others for persecution. This pseudoscience of human ranking helped drive the genocide of the Holocaust. *Source: Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology* *Source: The Biological State: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 1933-1939* ## 14 July 1933 — Nazi Germany enacts compulsory sterilization law The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring authorized the forced sterilization of people with disabilities and illnesses, drawing openly on American models. About 400,000 people were sterilized against their will. *Source: Eugenics* *Source: The Biological State: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 1933-1939* ## c. 1934 to c. 1975 — Sweden runs decades-long sterilization program Sweden forcibly or coercively sterilized around 60,000 people, mostly women, under eugenic and social policy. The program showed that eugenics took hold in democracies, not only under the Nazis. *Source: In the name of science: The role of biologists in Nazi atrocities: lessons for today's scientists* ## 15 September 1935 — Nuremberg Laws codify Nazi racial hierarchy The Nazi regime stripped Jews of citizenship and banned marriage between Jews and other Germans, giving racial hygiene the force of law. The laws laid legal groundwork for persecution that led to the Holocaust. *Source: The Nuremberg Race Laws* ## 1 September 1939 to 1941 — Nazi T4 program begins murdering disabled people Under the T4 "euthanasia" program, Nazi doctors murdered more than 70,000 disabled and mentally ill people they judged unworthy of life. The killing methods pioneered here were later used in the death camps. *Source: Euthanasia Program* ## 1 June 1942 — Skinner v. Oklahoma limits eugenic sterilization The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law to sterilize repeat criminals, calling reproduction a basic human right. The ruling began to turn American law against forced sterilization, though it did not overturn Buck v. Bell. ## 9 December 1946 to 1947 — Nuremberg Doctors' Trial exposes medical crimes Allied courts tried Nazi doctors for murder and torture carried out in the name of racial hygiene. The trial produced the Nuremberg Code on medical ethics and helped discredit eugenics worldwide. *Source: The Doctors Trial: The Medical Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings* > After the Holocaust, UNESCO made the break explicit: racial hierarchy was pseudoscience, and race was politically dangerous social myth. ## 18 July 1950 — UNESCO Statement on Race rejects the pseudoscience UNESCO published its 1950 Statement on Race, arguing that for practical social purposes race was "not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth" and rejecting racial hierarchy after Nazism and genocide. A 1951 follow-up kept the antiracist conclusion while clarifying the biological wording. > "not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth" > — The Race Concept: Results of an Inquiry *Source: Fallacies of racism exposed: UNESCO publishes Declaration by world's scientists* *Source: Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice* *Source: UNESCO Courier 70: an inspiring read* ## 1981 — Gould's The Mismeasure of Man dismantles racist science Stephen Jay Gould exposed how craniometry and intelligence testing had been warped by racial bias. The book became a landmark critique of the long effort to rank human worth by biology. ## 1994 — The Bell Curve revives racial IQ claims Herrnstein and Murray's book argued that IQ gaps between races were partly genetic, drawing fierce criticism from scientists. It showed that discredited ideas of racial hierarchy still resurface in modern debate. ## 14 April 2003 — Human Genome Project confirms race is not biological The completed human genome showed that all people are more than 99.9 percent identical and that race has no clear genetic basis. The findings undercut centuries of claims that races were distinct and unequal. *Source: Human Genome Project Fact Sheet* *Source: Human Genomic Variation* *Source: AAPA Statement on Race and Racism* ## 26 November 2018 — He Jiankui announces gene-edited babies Chinese scientist He Jiankui claimed he had edited the genes of twin babies, provoking global alarm about a new form of eugenics. He was later jailed, and scientists widely condemned the experiment as reckless and unethical.